Abstract
In contrast to its quantitative advances, political science has made only modest contributions to addressing salient contemporary issues. Political studies have largely been reduced to a functionalist science of ‘managing’ parliamentary-party government. The article argues in favour of the discipline redefining itself as a science of democracy, the need for partisan visions in attaining a ‘good society’, the need to help citizens grapple with policy alternatives, and that political scientists should take sides when democratic government conflicts with business interests.
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Notes
See also Eisfeld and Pal (2010).
The political scientist who remains unconvinced by the mere reference to Professor Ostrom's reading habits could do worse than glance at the following sentences: ‘Reading and writing letters for illiterate peasants made me understand that poverty takes many cruel forms other than occasional hunger … I sensed how my intrusion must have inhibited them and saw how inarticulate they were … I also remember the shock of discovering at an early age that illiteracy or semi-literacy were not a product of casual neglect but part of the established social order … As I ended an afternoon reading session in a gathering of peasants eager to listen to the speeches of President Roosevelt promising freedom, I was suddenly seized by a rural Republican Guard … He threatened to beat me up if I persisted in disturbing the minds of local people with that “Communist poison”, as he put it. I swore to myself that I would one day be able to explain the motivations and the power behind that rural guard’ (Figueiredo 1975: 10–12). This report might spur the scholar to further peruse, for example, Cutileiro (1971).
Also cf. Maxwell (1984: 46, 51, 66) who defines the academic community's ‘basic task’ as promoting rational thinking and problem-solving in ‘the rest of the human world’ so that it may, over time, become capable of ‘rational social action’. While I evidently consider this idea sound enough, some readers may find Maxwell's extensive from-knowledge-to-wisdom argument a bit contrived.
Cf. Theodor Geiger's (1930) exemplary depiction of ‘desperation’ and ‘panic’ induced by the Great Depression that prompted Germany's middle classes to largely vote for the Nazis (see also Geiger, 1932: 118, 121).
See also Lupia (2000: 12).
A ‘regression’ to ‘more diffuse’ theories with ‘less empirical content’ (Feyerabend, 1976: 212) is not implied. ‘Removing intellectual rubbish’ (ibid.: 25) may, however, be part of the job.
Smith (1997: 273).
Cf., for example, Cerny (1997, 1999).
That is the sobering outcome of the studies conducted under the Norwegian Power and Democracy Project (1998–2003). Appointed by the government of Norway in early 1998, and headed by Øyvind Østerud (University of Oslo), the state-funded research group worked on the basis of a 1997 mandate by the Norwegian Parliament to compile a report on Power and Democracy within a period of five years (see Ringen, 2004; Engelstad and Østerud, 2004).
In the 1970s, Robert Dahl and Charles Lindblom, after having turned more sceptical and radical in their assessments, explained their earlier commitment to the ongoing political system thus: ‘The New Deal was not a remote historical episode. It provided grounds for thinking that reform periods would again occur with some frequency’ (cf. Dahl and Lindblom, 1976: XXX).
Lindblom (1990: 257–258).
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Eisfeld, R. How Political Science Might Regain Relevance and Obtain an Audience: A Manifesto for the 21st Century. Eur Polit Sci 10, 220–225 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2010.49
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2010.49